Appraisal Reviews

When making a decision or preparing for litigation, confidence in the value conclusions and appraisal reports you’ve requisitioned for the specific purpose is key. In addition, you may be unsure whether the opposition’s appraisal is adequately supported and appropriate. American Appraisal’s independent and objective appraisal review services addressing third-party appraisal reports can assist across a wide range of scenarios.

American Appraisal completes appraisal reviews considering various jurisdictional requirements, including those associated with:

In addition, we review appraisal reports developed to estimate a holding’s market value for a possible transaction between parties.

Who We Serve
American Appraisal assists owners/operators, attorneys, accountants, financiers, investors, developers and government entities with independent, objective appraisal reviews.

Although we can assist in almost any geography and with any asset or entity type, including large-scale or portfolios of investment real estate holdings, we have specialized experience reviewing appraisals pertaining to complex real property and related asset going concerns, and other holdings in the following industries:

Review Considerations
The review of an appraisal report addressing the market value of a specific holding needs to carefully consider the facts and circumstances of each individual holding, its highest and best use and its most probable buyer pool. Doing so will help to ensure that the property’s value was adequately supported and appropriate.

In distressed markets, the purchasing power of the buyer pool and the necessary timing of a deal can be critical. In addition, our reviews appropriately consider the likely capital structure of the reported buyer pool, which influences capitalization and discount rates. These factors are particularly important when financing is tight or a holding needs to transact quickly.

Our reviews bear in mind that arriving at a specific value for a property should include consideration of a realistic cash flow analysis, comparable transactions that have occurred demonstrating the amounts at which similar holdings are being sold, as well as the property's depreciated replacement cost to gauge the barrier to entry by future market competition. This applies whether we are reviewing the value associated with a single piece of equipment or analyzing a complex property acting as a going concern with real, personal and intangible property.

In the case of complex real property holdings, if the highest and best use of the holding is as an assembled group of assets, the first step in our review considers whether or not the reported value considers the assembled group of assets as a single economic unit. A tangible-asset-intensive going concern typically includes elements of real, personal and intangible assets. Its valuation often includes the application and reconciliation of all three basic approaches (income, sales comparison and cost).

Furthermore, our reviews consider that even within a specific market with consistent physical and functional use attributes, there may be stratification of value levels due to a holding’s income characteristics, which include:

Occupancy/utilization levels

The nature of the existing tenants/operators

The potential pool of tenants/operators

Experience
American Appraisal has reviewed third-party appraisals made for various purposes, including those pertaining to:

Horse racetrack barns for arbitration purposes

Fair market rents for various US federal courthouses

The value of other complex properties such as pipelines, refineries, and power generation facilities for property tax purposes